[johann28]

Most people don't want to reprogram stuff, they don't want to customize stuff. They want things to "just work", they don't want to choose which button controls the car windows and which knob controls the bass. This is the job of the designer. Most people want a finished product.

People don't want to "rewire" their products, they don't want to hack on this kind of thing. Except for geeks and technical people, who can also handle normal apps and interfaces.

The analogy with the Internet breaks down because the Internet is mainly successful because it connects people. That's what people care about, other people. The telephone was a success because it lets you talk to other people.

Unless this thing helps people deal with other people, it's too complex and uninteresting for the masses and probably too simple and tedious for technical people.

[valentinheun]

I disagree! The internet is successful because authoring and publishing became as easy as consuming. The first web browser was an editor and a browser in the same time.

The most successful webpages are those where people are authors. People want tools that empower them to engage with their environment.

To say people don't want to "rewire" their products is like saying that you don't want to connect your Electric Guitar with a wire to the Amplifier.

[johann28]

> The most successful webpages are those where people are authors.

Exactly. But not because they enjoy tweaking some website settings or enjoy the control over the layout of a page. No, the reason is connection with other people. They write a blog so that they get feedback from people. They post pictures to Instagram and Facebook to get likes and show off.

Connecting the electric guitar and repairing things with screwdrivers is seen by most people as a chore. Sure, techie, geeky tinkerers enjoy messing around with things, the same ones who enjoy configuring linux, for example.

I just haven't seen a single use case that would make sense in an everyday setting. Having a knob that controls the lamp? Well, lamps already have that, without being radio controlled.

If a car dashboard is designed well, then there's no need to remap the buttons. Very few people like to customize their stuff that much. If there is a trend in software (and hardware) it's that they remove options. We have less features and customizations than 10 years ago. Developers realized that people just mess their settings up and they call support. Also, the more options there are, the more bugs there will be. So now instead of supporting a myriad of settings, they just go with a default and leave it at that. Why don't we have the option of vertical browser tab arrangement in Chrome? Well, because they decided it's too complex and unnecessary for most users.

People just want to get their things done. They want to get business things done with other business people and they want to have fun with their friends.

The success of the Internet is all about human communication, sharing experiences (mainly through photos), and gossip.

[valentinheun]

I would say that there are a ton of people in the world that love to build things, because its how we came to that point where we are. This is the sole reason why the world around you exists.

Imagine building becomes so easy that it is more of an "amazing" experience for you then a "geeky" long lasting frustration.

[AndrewKemendo]

I think the original poster is trying to say that 99% of people aren't builders and don't even get to the point of geeky frustration - and I have to say I agree.

I'm an AR developer and it's been disheartening over the past 12 months to see how little people actually want to do anything other than "like" things. Even posting comments seems to be a big leap for most people.

[nhf]

I can definitely agree with both sides of this argument.

People like things to just work—and people also like to be able to customize things. I could see this concept being used as a superpowered versioned of IFTTT if it gets baked into products. People can tinker with building things, but there are also premade recipes that you can load and use.

[niutech]

I don't think publishing is as easy as consuming. Have you heard of the 1% rule[1]? Out of 100 people approximately only one is willing to create anything. People are generally lazy, they want to consume content rather than publish. Therefore non-technical people would probably not be happy to rewrite things they got used to.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%...